Sky News’ Peta Credlin has crashed Premier Daniel Andrews’ daily COVID-19 briefing to probe him on his government’s hotel quarantine lies and obfuscation.
In the video below, Credlin asks Andrews why Victoria’s Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp won’t be stood down after admitting yesterday that he failed to brief the Police Minister and Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville in the days leading up to the hotel quarantine scheme being launched, as explicitly required under Section 29 and 32 of the Emergency Services Act.
“No he wont be stood down,” Mr Andrews responded.
“I have confidence in Andrews Crisp.
“Victorians know Andrew Crisp is someone of integrity.”
In the second video below, Credlin asked Andrews why key phone records which could prove who decided to use private security were not tendered to the hotel quarantine inquiry.
As usual, Andrews dodged the questions and insisted the phone records had not been requested by the inquiry.
Finally, in the next video, Credlin asks Dan Andrews whether he and his senior ministers and senior public servants would be willing to provide their outgoing phone records to the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry to fill in a mystery six-minute window which could shed light on who decided to use private security guards:
“She’s not even asked,” Mr Andrews said of Jennifer Coate, who leads the inquiry.“If requests were made … of course we would provide and be cooperative in any way we possibly could.”
Sky News host Peta Credlin grilled Mr Andrews on his reluctance to freely provide the evidence – pointing out the inquiry does not have the power to request the records. “It is not in their power,” she said.
“The inquiry that you have established, led by Jennifer Coate, under the Victorian Inquiries Act does not have the power to request from you or your chief of staff or Mr Eccles’ phone records.
“That is only under the federal telecommunications interception act, it is not a power or an ability open to Justice Coate.
“But you, as an individual, your chief of staff and Mr Eccles can willingly provide that information now and completely clear up this six-minute period that has been, I think, the subject of a lot of debate and conjecture, you could clear that up tomorrow with your own free provision of records available to you now.
“We would be able to tell who called him if you, your chief of staff or Mr Eccles provided your phone records at that time, and if you did not call Mr Ashton, this whole matter would be cleared up.”
Mr Andrews said the inquiry board had not sought additional powers or raised concerns about deficiencies in its evidence-gathering.
“The board, in my judgement, has the powers it needs, they’ve not sought any additional powers, they’ve not highlighted to me or anyone else that I’m aware of any deficiencies or gaps in their terms of reference or in the powers and functions, the abilities they that they have,” he said.
“Having looked at nearly 300,000 pages, having heard from witnesses, from far and wide, I am confident if they believe there is a deficiency, or an incompleteness, in terms of the picture that they are working with, it is in their power to raise those matters.”
Dan Andrews is truly the master of talking without saying anything or answering questions directly.
Meanwhile, the infighting within the Victorian Government over who was responsible for the quarantine bungle continues, with Victoria’s Jobs Departments telling the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry that there “never was, in fact, any confusion” that the Department of Health and Human Services was accountable for the hotel quarantine program in its submission:
The department said its staff raised “multiple and repeated” issues with cleaning in the hotels and experienced difficulties in getting infection control information from its health counterparts to hotel staff and contractors as well as hurdles to obtaining regular safety briefings on the ground.
“The documents reveal that there never was, in fact, any confusion – on the part of the DHHS, DJPR or others – that DHHS was the agency with responsibility from the state’s perspective, for IPC [Infection Prevention Control] measures across the program and accountability for the program as a whole”…
But the department conceded it should have done more to scrutinise the extent of subcontracting of security guards that was going on in hotel quarantine, but maintained it “did not have any role” in the decision to use guards.
Expect this issue to blow up over the weekend.
